| 632 that the State of Missouri can entertain jurisdiction of crimes committed in other States. The affirmative of this proposition was taken in the argument with a zeal indicating sincerity. But no adjudged case or dictum was adduced in support of it. The court conceives that none can be. Let it be tested by principle.
"Man in a state of nature is a sovereign, with all the prerogatives of king, lords, and commons. He may declare war and make peace, and as nations often do who 'feel power and forget right,'-may oppress, rob, and subjugate his weaker and unoffending neighbors. He unites in his person the legislative, judicial, and executive power-'can do no wrong,' because there is none to hold him to account. But when he unites himself with a community, he lays down all the prerogatives of a sovereign (except self-defense) and becomes a subject. He owes obedience to its laws and the judgments of its tribunals, which he is supposed to have participated in establishing, either directly or indirectly. He surrenders also the right of self-redress. In consideration of all which, he is entitled to the ægis of that community to defend him from wrongs. He takes upon himself no allegiance to any other community, so owes it no obedience, and therefore cannot disobey it. None other than his own sovereign can prescribe a rule of action to him. Each sovereign regulates the conduct of its subjects, and they may be punished upon the assumption that they know the rule and have consented to be governed by it. It would be a gross violation of the social compact if the State were to deliver up one of its citizens to be tried and punished by a foreign State, to which he owes no allegiance, and whose laws were never binding on him. No State can or will do it.
"In the absence of the constitutional provision, the State of Missouri would stand on this subject in the same relation to the State of Illinois that Spain does to England. In this particular the States are independent of each other. A criminal, fugitive from the one State to the other, could not be claimed as of right to be given up. It is most true as mentioned by writers on the laws of nations that every State is responsible to its neighbors for the conduct of its
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